Forecasters downgraded Erika from a tropical storm on Thursday as the system continued to rapidly erode.
The National Hurricane Center dropped all watches and warnings at 5 p.m., as Erika's winds dropped to 35 mph. But even as a weaker and poorly organized depression, it remained windy and wet, and was expected to dump up to six inches of rain on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Forecasters expected Erika to fizzle further Friday and Saturday as it enters a zone with strong wind shear likely reduce it to a tropical wave of scattered strong thunderstorms.
Though some computer models continued to forecast a turn to the northwest, the system was moving west at 12 mph, prompting a significant change in the center's official track. Rather than turning toward the Bahamas, system is now expected to track more to th west and cross the mountains of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a rough passage the center don't expect it to survive.
The center takes its forecast out only to 2 p.m. Saturday with Erika's remnants over Haiti, hurricanes last year devastated poor villages with floods and mud slides. From there, forecasters gave the system little to no change of regenerating.
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